Drake Shark – #ROTA-EN002
A “Shark Drake” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect.
● Once per turn: You can detach 2 materials from this card, then target 1 Spell/Trap on the field; attach it to this card as material.
You can only use each of the following effects of “Drake Shark” once per turn. If this card is added to your hand, except by drawing it: You can Special Summon this card. This card can be treated as 2 materials for the Xyz Summon of a WATER Xyz Monster that requires 3 or more materials.
Date Reviewed: October 29th, 2024
Rating: 3.43
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Drake Shark starts our stretch of looking at monsters that share its name of sorts.
Level 4 WATER Fish with the strange 1050DEF stat you don’t see much anymore, Drake Shark is all about being an Xyz Material. As such, it can allow a Shark Drake Xyz Monster to steal a Spell/Trap on the field at the cost of detaching two materials. While this sounds like a -1 against you, if you are taking away something like a Field Spell or a monster that is being treated as a Spell/Trap on the field, then you are coming out ahead. Field Spells now will offer searches every turn in some archetypes or effects that trigger when their archetype does something. Centur-Ion like placing their monsters as Continuous Spells before Special Summoning them, and we are all familiar with Snake-Eye Continuous Spells and being placed as such at this point. There is also nothing stating you cannot target a face-down Spell/Trap on the opponent’s field, but they are likely to chain it to your activation, so Continuous or Field Spell/Trap are the way to go. Taking away a resource from the opponent is always welcome and when you take away something that is part of their core strategy that is even bigger.
Special Summoning itself when it is added to the hand outside of drawing it is just another extension to add to easy Xyz Summoning. Add it to the hand with Surfacing Big Jaws and drop it immediately to the field for instant Rank 4. Not only does Drake Shark make Xyz Summoning easier by becoming an extender when added to the hand in any fashion, it counts as two materials when you are Xyz Summoning something that is WATER and requires three or more. Now those big monsters that need so many materials suddenly are a bit easier to summon. This fits with its Shark Drake line of Xyz Monsters, but Full Armored Black Ray Lancer also fits the bill, as well as Gagagigo the Risen (though this is just a big Vanilla Xyz).
A monster with several Xyz Monsters sharing its name better make summoning them easier, and that’s what Drake Shark does. Easy extender with Surfacing Big Jaws to make a Rank 4, Drake Shark helps “Shark Drake” Xyz Monsters eliminate Spell/Trap cards on the field while using them as materials.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 3/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Now we get to an actual Shark monster to help finally give support to Shark’s boss monster, Number 32: Shark Drake, as we now have Drake Shark.
Drake Shark is a Level 4 WATER Fish with 1400 ATK and 1050 DEF. Stats are half of Shark Drake’s, but it’s always nice to be a WATER Fish. A Shark Drake Xyz that has this as material gains the effect where once per turn, it can detach 2 materials from itself to target a Spell/Trap on the field and attach it to itself as material. It’s backrow removal, but would have been better as a Quick Effect. Still decent to have if it would come up. The remaining effects are each a HOPT, first letting you Special Summon itself from the hand if it was added to said hand by any other means besides drawing it, which is basically a Snake-Eyes Poplar for the archetype. If you already got Buzzsaw Shark and Abyss Shark, this makes for a good search target to just get a free Special Summon from the hand. The final effect lets it be treated as 2 materials for the Xyz Summon of any WATER Xyz that requires 3 or more materials, basically letting you summon Shark Drake with 2 monsters as material instead of the 3 that really held the card back. First time the physical card game gets a monster that’s treated as 2 materials as well, since the rest are anime only, and I get why they hold an effect like that to not make every Xyz Monster literally only need 1 material, so they added the restriction here where it’s only 2 materials if said monster requires 3+ to summon. Drake Shark is a solid addition to the Deck, being a free extender and 2 materials to make the harder to summon Xyzs dedicated to Sharks easier to summon. Considering we got a new Shark Drake that would use the original to summon, you’ll likely go into it more now, so you’ll likely need a copy of this to summon it easier.
Advanced Rating: 3.25/5
Art: 4.25/5 Baby Shark… Drake
Mighty
Vee
Continuing the trend of “Poplars”, Shark Drake returns in Main Deck form as the aptly-named Drake Shark, a (once again) level 4 WATER Fish monster, perfect for Sharks as a deck. You’ll mostly be searching it with Abyss Shark and Surfacing Big Jaws for reasons that will be very obvious, but in an extreme situation you might have to summon it with Buzzsaw Shark (hopefully that never happens!). Fittingly, Drake Shark’s stats are exactly half of Number 32: Shark Drake, for a meager total of 1400 attack and 1050 defense– pretty bad stats, but you’ll be turning those into an Xyz monster soon enough.
While Drake Shark is attached to a Shark Drake monster as an Xyz material, it gains a soft once per turn effect to detach two Xyz materials to target and attach any Spell or Trap on the field to it as material. This effect is mainly meant to attach Xyz Armor Torpedo or Xyz Armor Fortress to itself for their respective buffs, though in a pinch it can get rid of your opponent’s problematic backrow. I don’t think this effect is that great though, especially since you’re losing two materials to gain one, and you’ll want the deck’s new boss monster to stack Xyz materials if you can. Drake Shark’s better usage comes with the first of its hard once per turn effects, triggering if it’s added to your hand in any way except by drawing it, letting it immediately Special Summon itself. As the legendary Poplar effect, it’s nice to have, though hardly revolutionary considering Shark has many powerful extenders, and they’re less conditional to boot. That’s why the second main reason you’d play Drake Shark is its final effect, letting you use it as 2 Xyz materials to Xyz Summon a WATER Xyz monster that takes 3 or more materials. Obviously, this is incredibly helpful for fielding Shark Drake, which infamously takes 3 materials for a rather underwhelming monster, and by extension it’ll help climb into the deck’s new boss monster. TCG Shark builds honestly don’t value Drake Shark as much, mostly because the new boss monster is replaceable by Toadally Awesome, which is ironically easier to make. Still, you’ll definitely play at least one Drake Shark; it’s still an extender at the end of the day that you’ll need to make the new boss efficiently, which can still come up in a Toadally Awesome world.
+Decent extender effect
+Makes it easy to make Number 32: Shark Drake
-Replaceable by many other monsters as an extender
-Bonus effect taking two Xyz materials is a little steep
Advanced: 3.5/5
Art: 3.5/5 Shark Drake on the weekends
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